Friday, March 29, 2024

Where is the G-Spot in squash?

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If we learn from Gregory Gaultier, maybe we should start calling it the GG-Spot
By TONY GRIFFIN – Squash Mad Coaching Correspondent and Author of G-Spot Squash

Let’s talk this week about a scientific question that has been around ever since the game was invented: Where is the G-Spot in squash?

One of the cleanest hitters in the game right now, in every area of the court, is Gregory Gaultier, who convincingly won the Grasshopper Cup in Zurich last week. Maybe we should start calling it the GG-Spot. He certainly won the G Cup in style, without dropping a game in the whole tournament. 

Anyway, here’s the answer to the question. The G-Spot is the place where your body naturally and instinctively hits the ball from. Our forehand and backhand racket swings are basically the same arm movements that, put simply, move in opposite directions.

Therefore it stands to reason that the point of impact of the racket with the ball should be the same spot in respect of our body.

Gregory Gaultier lines up a shot against Miguel Rodriguez
Gregory Gaultier lines up a shot against Miguel Rodriguez

The G-Spot is perpendicular to your shoulders and in line with your racket arm or shoulder. It is the same spot for both forehand and backhand.

In reality, the G-Spot is where we hit the ball from naturally and instinctively but, because squash is so fast, we generally are not conscious of the specific point of impact.

The ball is moving, our body is moving to the ball and our racket is moving, therefore our instincts take over and we naturally hit the ball from the right place. When the ball does not go where we want it to, it is because, for some reason, we have not connected at the G-Spot.

What helped me realise that the G-Spot is in front of the shoulder of your racket arm, was observing the way we hit the ball during many years of playing and coaching squash.

I saw that, often on the forehand side, some players tend to hit the ball well past the top of the bounce and sometimes even let the ball get close to the floor before striking it, whereas this seldom happens on the backhand side.

This led me to think that on the forehand we instinctively and subconsciously wait for the ball to get to the G-Spot so that we can hit it comfortably.

This may explain why squash matches are played slightly more on the backhand side. It appears to be naturally easier to play a straight shot on the backhand side.

To start with, whether or not you have hit the ball from the G-Spot is more noticeable when you are playing a shot that requires precision;  for example, drop shots, kill shots or nicks. I believe that if the ball goes too high it is because the point of impact is behind the G-Spot and if it goes too low or down (hitting the tin) then the point of impact is in front of the G-Spot.

It is instantly noticeable in precision shots if the ball was not hit from the right spot. Yet it is important to hit the ball from the G-Spot every time so that all the energy and effort we put into the shot is transferred to the ball. This will help gain consistency, which is extremely important in our sport.

Squash is often a game of attrition with both players playing a high number of shots in each rally. You often only see the results of consistently hitting the ball well after 15 to 20 minutes of play, or even a lot longer time.

So if you hit the ball from the same spot in relation to your body it will go to where you want it to almost every time.

To be able to do this you need to understand and control the way you move to the ball, and then your racket movement, so that you hit the ball at the G-Spot.

In future columns, we will start looking at these movements in detail, see how they are interrelated and discuss how to put them all together.

 

Picture by  IRENA VANISOVA (squashPage.net)

 

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